we may never be angels

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 02:15:54 GMT

The five boys that I have loved. Such a neat and tidy number. Such an even beginning to my twentieth year on this planet.

Boy one, with the freckles and long eye lashes. The first boy to exist for me, the first dead body I would see. Was it just his smile? I think it might have been.

Then another, who would not speak to me--who I would not speak to. We had an arrangement: he could not stand me. I would stay out of his way.

Three did not care for me until it was too late. Three was sweet in his own way, but lived like something fierce. Went through oxygen like there was not enough. Took up more than his share of the room.

Four had permanent dirt under his finger nails and I could feel it there in the dark. We did donuts in the icy parking lot of the movie theatre. Our bodies were tossed around in the cab of his truck like dice and I clutched the armrests, pale with nausea, watching the snowbanks roll past in waves. Our little ark, fueled by diesel and smelling of aged leather and cigarettes. Instead of animals, two-by-two we brought mittens and bottles of beer.

The fifth, oh, he was scared. Probably that last name of his, starting with the first letter of the alphabet so that only the girls who were really bad at skipping rope--only the ridiculously strong girls who got the stems off their apples first spin--were destined to marry him. Scared because he had given so much love and nobody had done him the favour of returning it.

It's silly to think how many ugly things could be sorted out with a simple apology. It's silly how much happier we would all be if we just said what we meant the first time. Every time.

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:09:06 GMT

Daniel,

It would take all my fingers and most of my toes to count the number of boys with your name that I have known. Down to just one hand if I was counting the ones who have made a difference on me. A schoolyard bully. My first kiss. A good friend who held his glasses together with the Scotch tape he carried around in his pocket. You.

My mother calls and asks if I am healthy and it's as though she is reaching with those soft, clean fingers straight through the wire to graze my forehead with the loose, elephantine skin of her knuckles. The feel of my mother's hands on my face has always put me to sleep.

This is the way I feel about you leaning in my doorway--the curve of your shoulder blade against the wall is something tranquil. You have found a way to reach me from that distance (although you squint this late at night to see me without your glasses). I will play you a song. I will tell you a story.

I would like you to know that I remember the slight pressure of your toes against my calf as I sighed and grinned that night lounging on your floor. And that I know you.

I will not let you down again.

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 05:56:12 GMT

The Mast

Found a place where I can be
All the things I want you to see
Take my head into your hands
'Cause I come to you from another land

And I don't need to know your favourite aunt's name
And I don't need to know what woman's felt the same
And I don't need to see you every single day
But I'd like to

Break my heart back into place
'Cause I've come to understand you more lately
And I've found a man inside your chest
Some will tear him up and I'll lay him to rest

And I don't need to know the details of your past
And I don't need to know when you thought of me last
And I would have to say if I'm the sail then you're the mast
And we've caught a good wind, the mast

Because you know me more than any before
'Cause you found the clues between me and you
You know me more than any before
'Cause you found the clues between me and you
- Feist

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 03:20:28 GMT

So, I have been here in the city for fifteen days now. Fifteen days of 24 hour sirens and floor mates who never sleep and carts lining the streets selling heaping plates full of Chinese food, twice as good as any of the food I could get back home.

I've made a few acquaintances so far but I am an introvert by nature and find myself, more often than not, waiting for them to come to me. Bad habit.

As for the work, it is no more than I was expecting but no less either and I am trying to find other ways of spending my time. Seeing movies alone and wandering from Bloor to Front Street and back again can only be done so many times before the appeal is lost. (Invitations to frat parties come occasionally but are usually made by the too-charming sort of boy who invariably is the type to slip something into your drink when you're not looking.)

I am glad to finally be in the city but something is missing. Maybe I will throw myself into some kind of extra curricular activity and spend all of my free time working at it in order to eliminate the possibility of any of this sinking in too deeply.

I spent the weekend in Hamilton with Haille. The apartment is what my mother would qualify as one step above total squalor but I am at an age where that sort of thing doesn't matter. We got drunk and watched idiotic movies and I fell asleep listening for the thousand scuttling feet of cockroaches.

Now I have stories to tell and nobody to tell them to, so I think I will go to bed. What a sad excuse for an evening.